Sounds right.
I was at one stage doing coal trading w/ partner , buying from Team China and selling to Team Philippines, did well, even through the 2008-2009 GFC, but had to stop when Team China limited coal export so know first hand the excitement of leverage and survivability as the GFC hiccuped our competitors’ shipments (banks withdrew credit per risk-off, and daisy chain of ship chartering broke asunder). We kept going because we did the trade based on back-to-back, but fully secured for the bank with cold hard cash, and the ships we chartered were all short term that year due to crazy expensive pricing - others paid to charter long term, thinking ships would ever rise, and we paid spot, believing ships would crater.
Yes, there were paper ships by MS and GS. Ships collapsed from US$85+K to less than 2k and as we were buying long term coal and selling CIF, we won, since Philippines sovereign buyer could not renege.
2009 was an excellent year.
Currently, as most of the time, I have no (as in zero) leverage, because leverage can kill irrespective of nature of business.
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